North Carolina-headquartered Novant Health has launched a new palliative care program to help improve quality of life for patients with heart failure.
The health system is rolling out the new program in partnership with hospice and palliative care provider Lower Cape Fear LifeCare. The two nonprofit organizations developed it to expand access and care options for seriously ill patients with heart failure.
The program aims to help these patients more efficiently manage their disease trajectories and symptoms, according to Erin Lambert, manager of Novant Health’s new heart failure program.
“Managing their symptoms every single day in their aspects of life. That’s what this program is for; for these patients,” Lambert told local news.
Novant Health provides facility- and community-based services including hospice, home health and palliative care. The health system’s other services include urgent and emergency care, family medicine and primary care, pediatric care, and specialty services such as cancer, heart and vascular, neurology, orthopedics and rehabilitation, among others.
Founded in 1997, Novant Health reported an operating revenue of $7.4 billion in 2021. The health system is a network of hospitals, physician practices and medical centers that provide services across more than 800 locations in North Carolina and South Carolina.
Lower Cape Fear LifeCare also provides care in both of those states, serving six counties in North Carolina and three in South Carolina.
The organization operates three hospice inpatient centers in North Carolina. In addition to hospice and palliative care, Lower Cape Fear LifeCare, also provides grief counseling and veteran services and community education programs.
The new palliative care program will hold a weekly clinic at the Novant Health Heart & Vascular Institute for community members.
The focus is to engage the community and help heart failure patients understand all of their end-of-life and serious illness care options, according to Kelly Erola, chief medical officer at Lower Cape Fear Life Care.
“We really focus on quality of life, understanding the disease process and empowering them to manage it and empowering them to look at aspects of their life and how they can balance through everyday life with and illness that is going to be with them for the rest of their life,” Erola said in the local news report.
